Salil Jose
I was supposed to meet the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble India, Gurcharan Das, at 3: 00 pm. But a sudden rain in Chennai played spoilsport. I was almost late by an hour when I reached the hotel where he was staying. I was fully drenched and the security men scorned me.
Gurcharan Das was patiently waiting for me. I was hesitant to present myself before him in that condition, especially after my experience with the security men. However, he extended his warm hands to welcome me. Moved by my sorry appearance, he offered me a towel and I felt at home.
This was Gurcharan Das - a man who took early retirement at the age of 50 to become a full-time writer. His 'India Unbound' has been acclaimed as an epoch-making book. In this book, he has predicted India's material prosperity. The book on Artha or money has been translated into many languages.
His other books include 'A Fine Family' (a novel), 'The Elephant Paradigm' (a book of essays) and 'Three English Plays' (an anthology).
He writes columns in different newspapers including 'The Times of India' and 'The Wall Street Journal' and 'The New York Times'.
His latest book 'The Difficulty of Being Good', which he wrote after a gap of seven years, deals with the subtle art of Dharma. Here he analyses the issue of Dharma in the present-day India. He turns to the Mahabharat in search of an answer to the moral dilemmas of the people in modern India.
Why has he turned to the epic to find an answer to the issues of the prosperous modern India?
It is because, as he says, all the central characters in the Mahabharat face the issue of being good and so an analysis of the epic will enhance one's moral reasoning power.
An exclusive interview with the acclaimed author
What made you turn to the Mahabharat for an answer to modern-day evils?
The Mahabharat is obsessed with the notion of Dharma and I was looking to find some definition of a select virtue for contemporary India. Also the Mahabharat is a great work of literature and I wanted to read it.
I found too many governance failures surrounding us. Both corporate governance and public governance are flawed. By public governance failure, I don't mean only a minister who is caught with the bribe money. It also means that most of the teachers in government schools skip work. About 20 pc of the earnings of the autorickshaw drivers are taken away by the police. One out of five MPs has criminal background. So every interaction of the citizen with the state machinery is fraught with moral ambiguity and failure.
Click here to buy The Difficulty of Being Good
I was looking to find if the Mahabharat had something to say about this moral ambiguity. I don't think reading the epic would make a policeman honest. To make a policeman honest you need police reforms. To make judges honest you need judicial reforms. To make bureaucrats honest you need administrative reforms. But in all these fields, you can carry out reforms. And they will raise the Dharma of the society.
There is also a moral failure. For example, if you are to punish the teachers for skipping their work, all of them will come back to school. But, will they teach with inspiration? Will they teach as though it is their Dharma? Will they inspire the young minds? So all these considerations led me to the Mahabharat. The epic has answers to many of our questions.
So in 2002, I decided to take an 'academic holiday' and read the Mahabharat for the next few years.
Image: Gurcharan Das
Interview with Ganapati Sthapati
I was supposed to meet the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble India, Gurcharan Das, at 3: 00 pm. But a sudden rain in Chennai played spoilsport. I was almost late by an hour when I reached the hotel where he was staying. I was fully drenched and the security men scorned me.
Gurcharan Das was patiently waiting for me. I was hesitant to present myself before him in that condition, especially after my experience with the security men. However, he extended his warm hands to welcome me. Moved by my sorry appearance, he offered me a towel and I felt at home.
This was Gurcharan Das - a man who took early retirement at the age of 50 to become a full-time writer. His 'India Unbound' has been acclaimed as an epoch-making book. In this book, he has predicted India's material prosperity. The book on Artha or money has been translated into many languages.
His other books include 'A Fine Family' (a novel), 'The Elephant Paradigm' (a book of essays) and 'Three English Plays' (an anthology).
He writes columns in different newspapers including 'The Times of India' and 'The Wall Street Journal' and 'The New York Times'.
His latest book 'The Difficulty of Being Good', which he wrote after a gap of seven years, deals with the subtle art of Dharma. Here he analyses the issue of Dharma in the present-day India. He turns to the Mahabharat in search of an answer to the moral dilemmas of the people in modern India.
Why has he turned to the epic to find an answer to the issues of the prosperous modern India?
It is because, as he says, all the central characters in the Mahabharat face the issue of being good and so an analysis of the epic will enhance one's moral reasoning power.
An exclusive interview with the acclaimed author
What made you turn to the Mahabharat for an answer to modern-day evils?
The Mahabharat is obsessed with the notion of Dharma and I was looking to find some definition of a select virtue for contemporary India. Also the Mahabharat is a great work of literature and I wanted to read it.
I found too many governance failures surrounding us. Both corporate governance and public governance are flawed. By public governance failure, I don't mean only a minister who is caught with the bribe money. It also means that most of the teachers in government schools skip work. About 20 pc of the earnings of the autorickshaw drivers are taken away by the police. One out of five MPs has criminal background. So every interaction of the citizen with the state machinery is fraught with moral ambiguity and failure.
Click here to buy The Difficulty of Being Good
I was looking to find if the Mahabharat had something to say about this moral ambiguity. I don't think reading the epic would make a policeman honest. To make a policeman honest you need police reforms. To make judges honest you need judicial reforms. To make bureaucrats honest you need administrative reforms. But in all these fields, you can carry out reforms. And they will raise the Dharma of the society.
There is also a moral failure. For example, if you are to punish the teachers for skipping their work, all of them will come back to school. But, will they teach with inspiration? Will they teach as though it is their Dharma? Will they inspire the young minds? So all these considerations led me to the Mahabharat. The epic has answers to many of our questions.
So in 2002, I decided to take an 'academic holiday' and read the Mahabharat for the next few years.
Image: Gurcharan Das
Interview with Ganapati Sthapati
blog comments powered by Disqus